A GUINNESS Christmas.......

 

Holiday Cheers!

Happy Holidays to all our fans,  

from all of us at Beerattitude!

 

How Is Beer Made?

                       Dan Kahn Brewmaster at Buckbean Brewing Company

                       walks us through the basics of brewing beer.

 

For more info visit: Buckbean Brewing Co.

Mill Street Brew Pub

Mill Street Brew Pub gears up for the Jan 20th, 2012 Grand Opening of their newest location in Ottawa, ON. Mill St. Brew Pub opened in October 2006 in Toronto's Historic Distillery District in the original Gooderham and Worts tankhouse that housed the original Brewery from late 2002. Mill Street Brewery is East Toronto's first commercial brewery to open in more than 100 years, producing handcrafted beers and ales in the historic Corktown area of the city. Mill Street's 6,000-sq.-ft. space in Toronto includes an open-concept brewery, sampling bar, retail store and event space.

Brewmaster Joel Manning provides this short video interview on the progress of the brew pub as their deadline closes in.

 

Mill Street Beers:

Tankhouse Pale Ale, 5.2% alc./vol.

Like traditional pale ales, Tankhouse Ale has a deep copper-red colour. We use five different malts to produce a complex malty texture. The most dominant character of our Pale Ale is the hop. The spicy Cascades is used to give an assertive hop flavour, aroma and bitterness to our ale. The result is a satisfying and complex-tasting beer. Our brewmaster developed this recipe 20 years ago and it has remained his favorite drink of choice.

Tasting Notes: Orange-tinged dark amber; aroma shows rich fruity hoppiness (cherry, plum), plus woody notes, and lightly smokey crystal malts.

Suggested food pairing: mussels, fish & chips, curried dishes.

Original Organic Lager, 4.2% alc./vol.

This 100% all natural certified Organic Lager is Ontario’s first organic lager, and contains no pesticides, insecticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers. Brewed with imported malt and hops, this 4.2% European-style pilsner offers a light, crisp and refreshing flavour, with a clean finish.

Tasting Notes: Light, golden colour, light floral hop aroma, pleasant malty/biscuit taste with a well-balanced finish. Very clean, with no aftertaste.

Suggested food pairing: seafood, light pasta, chicken, light vegetable dishes, cheese and fruit.

Stock Ale, 5% alc./vol.

A golden export-style ale made from only malt and hops, no fillers or adjuncts. A brillant golden colour gives a “sparkling” appearance as the gas escapes from the glass. The natural sweetness of the malt is perfectly balanced by the bitterness derived from the hops. This beer represents the way blonde ales were made 100 years ago.

Tasting Notes: A golden brilliantly clear ale, light dusting of hops in the nose, light malt flavour in perfect balance with hop bitterness.

Suggested food pairing: Grilled meat, spicy south western-style dishes.

Balzac’s Coffee Porter, 5.5% alc./vol.

Our porter is rich and robust, dark brown in colour with a dark roasted coffee nose, imparting an intense coffee flavour with notes of chocolate. Made with beans supplied by the Distillery District’s Balzac's Coffee, this porter offers a rich, full and unique flavour. Currently, there are no other coffee-flavoured beers in the Ontario market.

Tasting Notes: Dark brown with light brown head. Nice earthy hop finish. Roasted aroma. Very chocolaty.

Suggested Food Pairing: comfort food, stews, roasted meats, oysters and pub fare.

 

Mill Street Organic Helles Bock, 7.0% alc./vol.

A pale (Helles in German, orange colour), strong German lager brewed with 100% Organic malt and hops. A great big white head gives way to a sweet maltly note which is quickly followed by the aroma of alcohol. A rich malty flavour with hints of current and oranges is found on the first sip. The hops have a gentle bitterness to balance the malt. The alcohol is not a dominate flavour, but you certainly feel it after a glass or two.

Cobblestone Stout 4.2% alc./vol. (Draught Only)

We produce a traditional styled Irish Stout that is served using beer gas to produce that familiar creamy pore. This is the same system that draft Guinness uses. Our black stout has a roasted malt flavour and a hint of toasted walnuts and chocolate in the finish. Select imported hops are used to dry out the finish of this ale.

Mill Street Pilsner.4.8% alc./vol.

Our organic continental lager has a deep golden hue, a giant rocky white head with a malty sweet nose. The first taste is sweet but leads quickly to a dry hoppy bitter finish. In the German style, Mill Street Pilsner finishes dry and is an excellent accompaniment to food or an excellent thirst quencher on its own.

Mill St Wit Beer 5% alc./vol.

Mill St Belgian style Wit is a refreshing beer made with a unique blend of ingredients. The soft texture and pale colour comes from the use of wheat. Coriander, orange peel and our special yeast produce the complexity and depth of fruity flavours contained within the glass. This beer is unfiltered. The resulting cloudiness gave rise to the term Wit, or White beer.

Mill St Fruit Beer, 5%alc./Vol

Mill St Fruit Beer is made from a blend of raspberries and a pale beer. This allows the wonderful flavour of the cherries to dominate the taste and aroma with the beer underpinning the natural sweetness of the fruit. The red colour comes entirely from the fruit.

Mill St. Extra Special Bitter (ESB), 4.6% alc./vol

Bitters have been the common drink in English pubs for decades. Mill St ESB uses only traditional ingredients, Marris Otter malt and Fuggles and East Kent Goldings hops, all imported from England. With light malt and hops in the nose, this copper coloured ale gives rise to a malty body with hints of chocolate and black currents. The hoppiness is always present but never out of balance in this style.

Mill St India Pale Ale (IPA), 6.1% alc./vol

True IPA's were high in both alcohol and hops to survive the long hot voyage from Britain to India. This makes it a big and flavour beer style. Our version is no exception. Traditional English malts and hops are used to give this copper brew a big flavour. This beer has a slightly roasted note with a strong hop bitterness and flavour.

Brewed Awakening

Brewed Awakening: Behind The Beers And Brewers Leading  The World's Craft Beer Revolution
By Joshua M. Bernstein

Fine wine has always had its expert guides to taste and terroir. Why not beer? Funky, young, and smart, this is the ultimate beer geek's companion, covering everything from the homebrew renaissance to nanobreweries to many of America's preeminent beer events and festivals.There's a revolution brewing among craft beer makers: They're reviving long-forgotten recipes, dosing brews with wild yeasts to create new flavors, and using organic grains and hops to forge a delicious new frontier of beer. And no one's better equipped to tell us what's happening than Joshua M. Bernstein, former Gourmet.com writer and one of the world's foremost beer experts.  He covers all of today's top trends, including high-alcohol, bourbon barrel-aged, cask-conditioned, and even gluten-free beers.Designed to look just like Joshua's notebook and featuring labels and photos, this extreme guide is a one-stop shop for cutting-edge beer technology, taste, and information.

Joshua M. Bernstein tells us about his book.. "Why Brewed Awakening? Concerning beer, the last decade has witnessed more seismic changes than any time since Prohibition. There are more than 1,700 craft breweries in America, from community-based nanobreweries to the new breed of national brands such as Dogfish Head and Stone. Untethered from stodgy tradition, and driven by unbridled creativity, American and international brewers are leading a boundary-less charge into the global future of beer. I’ve spent the last six years covering the craft beer industry, traveling from Asheville to Austin, San Francisco to Chicago, Portland to Portland. I’ve hit breweries. Interviewed brewers. And spelunked deep into the people and the trends driving the craft beer revolution. There’s a story in every pint glass. I give voice to them."
  

“Joshua M. Bernstein’s Brewed Awakening shines a spotlight on the variety, ingenuity, and innovation that is alive and well in the beer community. Over the past decade, the collective renaissance of beer and brewing has proven that this is the best time in history to be a beer drinker. Brewed Awakening is a great look behind the curtain of the beers that are making this revolution so great.”—Ken Grossman, founder, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

“Brewed Awakening does an excellent job of immersing the reader right into the heart of what craft beer is all about. Hardcore beer geeks and newcomers to the craft beer revolution alike will find a wealth of fascinating, and fascinatingly cool, information on every page.”—Greg Koch, CEO and cofounder, Stone Brewing Co.

Available today in both hardback & kindle versions, in the Beer Book Store

Joshua Bernstein's creative look behind the scenes of "Brewed Awakening"

 

Terrapin Beer & Left Hand Brewing: Peaotch

  

Peaotch is the forth in a series of collaborations between Terrapin Beer and Left Hand Brewing. Terrapin's brewmaster and co-founder Spike Buckowski along with Left Hand brewmaster Ro Gunzel, spent some time together on one of Gunzel's trips to Georgia. During the visit their conversations on beer went long into the night. The result was the idea for a collaborative series of single-batch, limited edition beers which would come to be known as the "Midnight Project". Midnight Project dates back to 2008 with the creation of "Terra-Rye’ZD Black Rye Lager".  The breweries went on to produce "Depth Charged Espresso Milk Stout" in '09, Oxymoron in '10, and now "Peaotch". The concept for this beer was to brew a fruit ale using fresh peaches from both Georgia and Colorado. Their selection of malts is 2-Row Pale, Munich, Victory, Wheat, Aromatic, Acidulated & Pilsner. For the hops they chose Willamette & Cascade. As for the numbers, Peaotch is mild at  25 IBU's and  modest at 7.2% ABV. The beer pours a deep orange color with a thin white, quickly dissipating head. The aroma is "peachy" but not overpowering and the hops were almost non-existent to the nose. The mouth feel was light in body with mild carbonation. Very similar to that of a cask or real ale. I'm not normally a fruit beer drinker, but I do enjoy the Samuel Smith's line of organic fruit ales. I moved on to the  flavor and was absolutely surprised at the lack of peach presence in the beer. It was so mild that I almost had to remind myself what peaches actually taste like, in order to gain a point of reference. I guess my expectation was that a beer, which touts it's peach character so prominently, would want to have a dominant peach flavor right up-front. The lack of hop presence is understandable. You would likely have a serious sensory clash if both the hop and peach were battling for control of your pallet. For me, the minimal  peach flavor is what really made this beer less than stellar and nothing more just an average mild ale. Because I always want to be fair and am a huge fan of Terrapin Beer,  I will gladly give it a second chance.   As I noted earlier, Peaotch is a limited single-batch release, in 22oz bottles. If you want to try it, I'd say get it now. It has been on the market for about two and a half months and may be disappearing soon. Cheers!

Terrapin Beer & Left Hand Brewing's "Midnight Project"

 
 

Never Summer Ale

 

 Winter is upon us, and the fine beers that go along with it are popping up on shelves everywhere. This change of seasons also brings the migration from those Thanksgiving Day-in-a-bottle, "pumpkinie-spiced" beers we feel so obligated to drink. With the release of these winter ales we are presented with a variety of roasty, toasty, nutty & malty libations which are perfect for snuggling-up with next to a roaring fire. One such offering is Never Summer Ale from Boulder Brewing. Although Boulder classifies this beer as an American Strong Ale, it hits the lower end of the scale at around 6% ABV. Deep ruby red in color, assertively hopped, and brewed with dark caramel malt, Never Summer gets its unique character from the use of British Dark Caramel Malt, U.S. 2-row barley, Nugget, Willamette and Cascade hops. Some additional spices are added which Boulder cares not to disclose. The hop presence is not overwhelming, but is much more evident than in most winter beers you'll find. Never Summer pours reddish-brown in color with an off-white head. The nose is of hop and roasted malt, with a touch of candy sweetness. The mouth feel is bold and malty, mildly carbonated and crisp, with a traditional hop-like bitterness. So as you begin your winter drinking list be sure to include Boulder's Never Summer Ale. Cheers!

Form more info on Never Summer visit: Boulder Beer Co.